Here's a question. How do you syringe feed (yes things have gotten a little desperate today) and give a cat nutri cal without having to constantly give them a bath? She just had her second bath this week. I feel horrible but she was super haggard and crusty. Thank god she's pretty easygoing (she will try to get away from the water but she would never bite or scratch me--amazing, I know), but I mostly just don't want to put her through it!

when i syringe fed kittehs it got pretty messy too, (so i'm not much help) but if Effie is grooming herself post-bath still (i know you mentioned it earlier) she might be up for grooming the nutri cal off of her. try putting a little dollop on one of her front paws and see if she'll lick it off. i've foster cared for some kittens before that would do that.

can you try wrap her up in a towel when syringe feeding her? perhaps making a kitteh burrito with just her head sticking out - at least then just her face would need cleaning instead of the rest of her!

Here's a question. How do you syringe feed (yes things have gotten a little desperate today) and give a cat nutri cal without having to constantly give them a bath? She just had her second bath this week. I feel horrible but she was super haggard and crusty. Thank god she's pretty easygoing (she will try to get away from the water but she would never bite or scratch me--amazing, I know), but I mostly just don't want to put her through it!

when i syringe fed kittehs it got pretty messy too, (so i'm not much help) but if Effie is grooming herself post-bath still (i know you mentioned it earlier) she might be up for grooming the nutri cal off of her. try putting a little dollop on one of her front paws and see if she'll lick it off. i've foster cared for some kittens before that would do that.

can you try wrap her up in a towel when syringe feeding her? perhaps making a kitteh burrito with just her head sticking out - at least then just her face would need cleaning instead of the rest of her!

I'll definitely try the towel! It tends to be the fur around her chest that gets the worst but then somehow she manages to get it everywhere else too. She won't groom the nutri cal off her, really. She just tries to shake it off and smear it on things and then by the time it dries it's too much for her to get off and only shampoo can do it. She hates that stuff. I've been giving her kitten milk replacement by syringe a lot, and then a slurry of pate cat food, kitten milk, nutri cal and salmon oil sometimes when I'm feeling more ambitious. She probably ate at least 2 oz, maybe 3, of wet food yesterday though, plus some Temptations. This morning before I left for work she ate a few bonito flakes, so that's something anyway.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

Here's a question. How do you syringe feed (yes things have gotten a little desperate today) and give a cat nutri cal without having to constantly give them a bath? She just had her second bath this week. I feel horrible but she was super haggard and crusty. Thank god she's pretty easygoing (she will try to get away from the water but she would never bite or scratch me--amazing, I know), but I mostly just don't want to put her through it!

when i syringe fed kittehs it got pretty messy too, (so i'm not much help) but if Effie is grooming herself post-bath still (i know you mentioned it earlier) she might be up for grooming the nutri cal off of her. try putting a little dollop on one of her front paws and see if she'll lick it off. i've foster cared for some kittens before that would do that.

can you try wrap her up in a towel when syringe feeding her? perhaps making a kitteh burrito with just her head sticking out - at least then just her face would need cleaning instead of the rest of her!

I'll definitely try the towel! It tends to be the fur around her chest that gets the worst but then somehow she manages to get it everywhere else too. She won't groom the nutri cal off her, really. She just tries to shake it off and smear it on things and then by the time it dries it's too much for her to get off and only shampoo can do it. She hates that stuff. I've been giving her kitten milk replacement by syringe a lot, and then a slurry of pate cat food, kitten milk, nutri cal and salmon oil sometimes when I'm feeling more ambitious. She probably ate at least 2 oz, maybe 3, of wet food yesterday though, plus some Temptations. This morning before I left for work she ate a few bonito flakes, so that's something anyway.

that's good! it's better than nothing and awesome on her eating the bonito flakes and Temptations, too. have you tried the feline greenies? all three of our cats go bonkers for the chicken flavored ones. they're the only treats they'll eat. sadface on Effie not wanting to groom nutri cal off of her paws. i can't blame her though. it just stinks because cats get into these cycles when they're not well. they don't eat because they feel like poo and then they feel like poo because they're not eating.

The polyprenyl immunostimulant arrived today! Excited to see how it goes. My vet is also really excited and says the research looks really promising. Having a cat on five different medications is pretty overwhelming though.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

The polyprenyl immunostimulant arrived today! Excited to see how it goes. My vet is also really excited and says the research looks really promising. Having a cat on five different medications is pretty overwhelming though.

so awesome on Effie eating some of the fancy feast, strawberryrock. i hear ya on the medications - it can get overwhelming. when julie was on a bunch of different medications we made notecards with little checkboxes and such. it made it less confusing for me because it was all written out. but i hear ya on it being a lot with all those meds. i have my fingers crossed on the immunostimulant! keep us posted! :)

I have every medication on my google calendar! Two are every 12 hours, pain meds are every 8-12 hours as needed, one is every three days, and one is three times a week. Apparently there is one cat on PI that has been alive for six years, which is totally unheard of. Sadly most definitely don't last that long, but I could never deal with feeling like I didn't do everything I could.

Of course the PI is about 250 every five weeks and she'll be on it for the rest of her life, however long that is...time to apply for more credit cards!

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

I feel like she's gotten more lethargic, which worries me a lot. But it seems like she's eating relatively well and is up an ounce in the past week with no syringe feeding. She was getting to be a pretty angry kitty because she was so tired of getting two pills a day, but I got that medication compounded into a fish-flavored liquid and she seems much happier now. Now she just gets two small doses of two liquid medications each day (easy peasy), plus a really large dose of a liquid medication three times a week (she hates that one), and one pill every three days (that one is awful too and I'm going to see if I can get it compounded as well). No syringe feeding means no baths. So basically she is being messed with less which is good and it seems like she hates me less, so that's exciting.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

Am I correct in understanding that Effie is getting treatment not yet widely available, so that if she successfully battles through this, the potential to help many more cats is also increased?

She's not a part of a formal study but she is taking experimental medication that so far has only gone through a pilot study but looks promising for a small number of cats. So I'm not sure if information about how she does on it will be used in any way or not? It's available to anyone who knows about it and pays a lot of money basically (technically for shipping and handling but still super expensive), because the doctor who is studying it wants it to be available to cats with FIP even though it hasn't been approved yet.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

We're hanging out in bed now. She's not really moving. Still breathing and everything, but it feels like she is pretty much gone, which I guess is what happens when the disease hits their brain. So crazy that this didn't start until around 8pm tonight. She stopped eating yesterday, though, so I knew something was up. Took her to the emergency vet, made up my mind to put her down twice while there, and couldn't go through with it. I just wanted to do it with my own vet, like I wanted my vet who I love to tell me it was the right decision...though of course it obviously is, she can't move voluntarily.

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish